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Carroll Shelby and the Avengers

by Charlie Turner

Thanks for stopping by OnPitRow.com and the Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie blog. The best NASCAR and IndyCar news and opinion, exclusive pictures and video. I'm Charlie Turner. Follow me on Twitter @onpitrow

May 16, 2012 10:08 am UTC No Comments

One of my heroes passed this past weekend. Carroll Shelby died at age 89.

I don’t want to recap Shelby’s life in this post. Others have written that story over the past several days. The truth is, I’m a little late to be writing an epitaph on the man. From the moment that I heard the news of his passing though, I’ve known I had to write about my feelings.

I was a kid in the late fifties and sixties. I loved all sports but auto racing was a magnet for my attention. I’ve written before about how tough it was to get timely racing info back then. Especially so for the things that happened mostly in Europe, like Formula One and Sports Car racing. Lucky for me, that my dad subscribed to Sports Car Graphic and Road & Track. There I found coverage of men who became, and remain, my heroes.

F1 and endurance racing was then, as it is again today, dominated by European manufacturers. Ferrari and Porsche in sports cars, Lotus, Cooper, BRM and Brabham in F1. But a handful of Americans – and man, did they ever look the part of All-Americans – went over there and competed. When they had the right ride, guys like Dan Gurney, Roger Penske, Richie Ginther and Carroll Shelby won, against the best in the world.

For a few of them, winning in someone else’s, some other country’s, car wasn’t enough. They must have heard the comments like; “yanks can only build cars that go in circles”. I think they got pissed.

Shelby, Penske, Gurney and Jim Hall are my Avengers.

They built cars here, in the states, and went to Europe and beat the best in the world. I can remember to this day, how proud I was when Shelby’s Cobras won and Hall’s Chaparrals and Dan Gurney’s Eagle Westlake F1 car won at Spa. That Eagle was the first, and only American F1 winner until The Captain, Roger Penske went back to Europe with his own car.

The greatest achievement, most significant anyway, may have been when Shelby lead a team of Ford MK IVs to victory in the 24 hours of Lemans, beating the best of Enzo Ferrari’s 330 P4s. Glorious.

In the Avengers comics, Tony Stark is Ironman. He designed his famous suit of armor to protect a damaged heart. He did more with it than that.

Carroll Shelby was one of the longest lived recipients of a heart transplant. He accomplished much after, and lived an amazing life.

When I heard of Shelby’s death, I texted Steve and asked that he try to get Dave Despain On Pit Row this week to talk about ‘Ol Shell. Here is the highlight of Daves interview. I hope you enjoy it.

Photo credit: Sports Illustrated

Filed under: Formula One, NASCAR & the Media, SPEED TV

Tagged with: Carroll Shelby, Dan Gurney, endurance racing, Jim Hall, Lemans, Roger Penske, Sebring, sports car racing

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Fins to the Left Fins to the Right Daytona Pack Racing is All Right

by Charlie Turner

February 28, 2012 11:48 am UTC No Comments

The 2012 Daytona 500 was memorable for many things including the debut of Monday Night NASCAR.

I don’t write race recaps. I don’t enjoy doing them and there are really good, professional journalists who do that better than I ever could anyway. So go read Bob Pockrass or Dustin Long or Ryan McGee’s stories this week if you want to know what happened in the Daytona 500 and why it did.

Congrats to Matt Kenseth on winning the race and to Jack Roush for owning the front row of the grid in addition to the car that won the race. Nice start for the Roushies in 2012.

Dale Earnhardt Jr finished second, and looked to have a shot at the win late in the race. But it was not to be.

The Pack is Back. Pack racing at restrictor plate tracks is once again the rule. The proof came when, with a couple laps left, and Kenseth all alone out front with no one to draft with, the combo of Junior and Greg Biffle couldn’t catch him.

In the days of tandem plate racing, Matt would have been as toasted as Reilly Mansfield at a Saturday night gig. But he held on.

The pack racing led to some crazy wrecks. And Juan Pablo Montoya’s, yellow flag spin into a jet dryer was just bizarre . So was 15 hours, spread over two days, of pre-race fill by DW, MW and MJ.

I hope to hell there’s no weather in the forecast for Phoenix.

Photo credit: Round girl Cindi by BethAnne Heisler – OnPitRow.com

Filed under: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Darrell Waltrip, Daytona 500, Daytona International Speedway, Greg Biffle, Juan Pablo Montoya, Michael Waltrip, NASCAR, NASCAR & the Media, Sprint Cup Series

Tagged with: bob pockrass, Dustin Long, restrictor plates, Ryan McGee

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NASCAR 2012 Daytona 500 Year of the Twitter

by Charlie Turner

February 27, 2012 11:46 pm UTC No Comments

Have you heard of twitter NASCAR?

Give me a break. As we wait for the restart of the Daytona 500, after a horrifying, firey, yellow flag crash that others will write about plenty, I’m listening to DW and Mike Joy talk about their twitter accounts.

Darrell let “slip” that his twitter had passed 100K followers this weekend. And that Brad Keselowski’s twitter had done this and someone else’s had done that. Mikey Waltrip is a twitter whore. The NASCAR garage is a twitter bordello.

I get it. We have a twitter account. Hardly worth mentioning. I tweet a few things that I think might be entertaining or enlightening. Mostly stuff about the show. I retweet smart things I see. I don’t live on it.

I remember, during 2011, asking Jeff Hammond (he wasn’t the only one) if he was on twitter. He said he didn’t do that social media stuff.

Last week, we had @HollywoodJeff on the show for the first time in 2012. He mentioned twitter and social media and our twitter accounts and social media and his twitter and..on..and on…socially…

This is a rant. I’m sick of guys who have all the attention anyway, using air time that should be used giving us info, instead using it to pump their f’ing egos.

Filed under: Darrell Waltrip, Michael Waltrip, NASCAR, NASCAR & the Media

Tagged with: Add new tag

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Tony Raines and the Daytona NASCAR Dads Car

by Charlie Turner

February 26, 2012 9:28 am UTC No Comments

When we had Front Row Motorsports‘ driver Tony Raines live On Pit Row Tuesday, the team knew they were in the race but still lacked sponsorship for the Daytona 500.

Tony told us that he thought he’d heard of some interest, but didn’t know – or didn’t divulge – who had the dough.

Turns out Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s campaign is going to sponsor the #26 Ford Fusion in the Great American Race.

Makes sense. NASCAR fan demographics shade well to the right politically. George DubbYa knew that. So did Ronald Reagan. Remember Reagan in the booth when King Richard Petty won his last 500? NASCAR Dads?

Front Row and Raines are underdogs today in the 500. But so was Santorum 6 weeks ago and now he’s at the top of the polls. Karma is on the side of the #26 today.

Photo credit: AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt

Filed under: Daytona 500, Daytona International Speedway, NASCAR, NASCAR & the Media

Tagged with: Front Row Motorsports, Tony Raines

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I Guess Danica Patrick is a 10 After All

by Charlie Turner

November 5, 2011 11:29 am UTC No Comments

Danica Patrick is a helluva driver. She’s also a marketing person’s dream. Funny too. Now she’s officially a ten. No more argument.

Photo credit: Getty Images for NASCAR

Filed under: Danica Patrick, NASCAR, NASCAR & the Media, NASCAR Bidness, NASCAR business, Stewart Haas Racing, Tony Stewart

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Hollywood Evicted from Hotel? Say it Ain’t So

by Charlie Turner

October 1, 2011 6:46 am UTC No Comments

Do we really need more Waltrip-ness in NASCAR?

Michael Waltrip is replacing Hollywood Jeff Hammond in Fox’s Hollywood Hotel pre-race and in-race TV segments for the 2012 Sprint Cup season.

No offence Mikey, but that is gonna suck. Here’s why. There’s just too much Waltrip on the NASCAR-network already. I like these guys. I don’t even mind Boogity-Boogity, but between Michael’s and Darrell’s commercials and their, already pervasive presence in race coverage I get plenty of Waltrip. Jeff Hammond was a nice break from it all. Hollywood will be a great pit reporter.

I think that one of the reasons TV ratings for the actual races have declined in recent seasons is that there is SO MUCH TV NASCAR available, throughout the week, that folks feel its’s OK to miss a 3-plus hour, live race broadcast because they can get the highlights somewhere during their schedule. I can’t help but think that further saturating the NASCAR-air, even though it’s different, may drive more viewers away from the actual race coverage.

That’s just me, maybe. But the best NAPA Know How commercials are the ones with Martin Truex Jr in them, without Mikey.

Filed under: Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Hammond, Michael Waltrip, NASCAR, NASCAR & the Media

Tagged with: Fox Sports, Hollywood Hotel

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